Sometimes wars settle into phases of attrition, nothing much happens, the lines budge an inch this or way that and everything falls into impasse. Sometimes things flare up and battles are fought and won. Now I don’t care much about the word complementarian and I care less about the infrastructures that exist, primarily in the US, to support it.

What I do think is important, and am not ready yet to set aside, is an anthropology and an order that I believe is both good and of God. Yet every time someone asks a good question, you have to be prepared to honestly take another look at things.

Such is the case now, once again the blogs, articles, tweets are flying and the subject of complementarianism is under fresh scrutiny. Mostly this is a good thing. If something is inherently faulty and causes significant pain to a proportion of the church then questions should be, must be, asked. Welcome it, not fight it. Of course, not all, if any, of the challenges are new but still they are there.

Before I get started let me try & give you an idea of broadly speaking my position. There are a whole spectrum of views but if, for the sake of having something to go on, I’d be somewhere around view 7 and the line at 2. I have in other places linked to many good resources (do check them out) but here are a fresh batch that have made me think, reflect and others which I think are a distraction.

First there is the challenge of terms. It may well have been Piper & Grudem who essentially coined both the terms complementarian and egalitarian but those in the latter camp are deciding to reframe the debate. Both those terms are out. Mutualism is preferred to egalitarianism and complementarian is replaced by either hierarchialist or straight out patriarchy. It’s a canny move because put that way the good guys sound better and the bad guys sound worse. It doesn’t actually change any of the substance but it’s a huge shift in tone.

It isn’t however a move that should go unchallenged. It doesn’t after all represent what the bad guys think. Here’s Piper & Grudem as quoted by Denny Burk.

If one word must be used to describe our position, we prefer the term complementarian, since it suggests both equality and beneficial differences between men and women. We are uncomfortable with the term “traditionalist” because it implies an unwillingness to let Scripture challenge traditional patterns of behavior, and we certainly reject the term “hierarchicalist” because it overemphasizes structured authority while giving no suggestion of equality or the beauty of mutual interdependence.

John Piper and Wayne Grudem (eds.), Recovering Biblical Manhood & Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1991), xv.

There might be a discussion to be had about what constitutes a hierarchialist but I think it’s unhelpful for all concerned, at worst it’s just name calling which not matter how effective that actually is doesn’t make it a good thing. Secondly it risks backfiring especially from when it comes from churches that have well-developed leadership hierarchies. The argument reduced is, ‘we think women should be in this hierarchy alongside men’. And ‘Let us into the hierarchy’ can’t surely be the best case ever made.

One last comment about the words we use: I’ve now read it a few times trying to point out that complementarianism is a recent invention. So Megan Cornwell writes, “Many Christians assume that complementarianism is centuries old, due to its claims of biblical orthodoxy, but the word actually has its genesis in 1980s American evangelicalism.” Which is both true and misleading at the same time. For example, scientists say evolution is hundreds of millions of years old but the word actually had it’s genesis in 17th century Holland so therefore can’t have happened before then. So yes, a movement began in 1980s US in response to cultural concerns but the thing they’re trying to defend or describe goes back much further. That’s not hard.

The second major challenge for me is an American one. Pretty much anytime someone like Owen Strachan or Kevin DeYoung opens their mouth I wish they hadn’t. So Stephen Kneale tries to differentiate between his experience in the UK and that of his American questioners. Dave Williams does here too. But having said that, I think our American friends have, like in many other areas, taken things to a whole other level. In this case to a new level of stupidity and meanness.

I read descriptions and responses to their experiences and I honestly weep. Now, I’m sure there are plenty of experiences in the UK and in my own tribe of Newfrontiers that will likely make me cringe. I don’t think Simon Benham is making stuff up when he writes, “I say this from conversations with women, in churches which are doing their very best to empower women in a ‘soft’ environment, who have told me at length about the opportunities they feel they have been denied… the ways they have been overlooked… the times they have performed a role without being given the title, the pay or the recognition a man would have received in the same position, and therefore the pain this has caused them.”

I do think there is going to be on the one hand a rejection of American complementarianism but I also think there will be a search for better application of complementarity. More on that in another post.